Devastating Effects

As I mentioned last week, we've got a few big pieces of news to announce, and two cards to preview. So let's get going!

We mentioned back at the beginning of December that we did not get chosen for the PAX South Indie Tabletop Showcase, and that we'd comment at a later time what our presence at PAX South was going to be. Well, thanks to someone who believes in us, we had the funds to purchase a booth in the Tabletop area at PAX South. We're still waiting to find out what our booth number will be, but rest assured that we will be official at PAX South where we will be demoing Shipload o'Gold and have a limited number of copies for sale. We'll also be demoing a second game as well, and will have a limited number of copies of that game. We've been keeping that game secret for now, and will reveal it soon, but it is what would be considered a "micro" game. So, in preparation for PAX South, Marshall's hard at work getting a bunch of extra artwork done for banners and signs.

Since we're going to be at PAX in an official capacity, complete with Exhibitor badges, we're going to have our own 3-Day passes to give away. We'll be discussing how we'll be giving those away on Thursday, so come back here for that. Just keep in mind that you'll have to be in San Antonio, TX from 29-31 January.

Now onto the cards. Last week I showed you Water Spout, which can be a bit nasty, but also has the upside of giving you an Action card for free if you have room for it in your hand. You've also already seen the Action card Stolen Secrets which allows you to steal an Action card from another player. This was mainly there to prevent the strategy of sitting on a hand of good Action cards and waiting for the best opportunity to use them. Rather than rely entirely on the Action deck to do that, we decided to develop a Weather card that would make that strategy less viable.

Rogue Wave is what we developed, and this one is a bit tricky. Here's the rules text for it:

Discard 1 Action card at random. If you have no Action cards, the next player in turn order discards 1 Action card at random. This effect continues until either an Action card is discarded, or the effect reaches the original player again.

So even though it's not your turn to draw a weather card, this is something that could still hit you. While you may want to wait for a maximum return on one of your Action cards, keep in mind that this could wreck that plan.

The Action card reveal this week was something we had worked on from the initial design. Getting shipwrecked was a common pirate trope, and in the first list of ideas for actions to incorporate into the game. It wasn't until midway through design that we figured out what it should do. Since we were working with the idea that the Action cards were related to either items on your ship or your crew, the answer came thematically.

Because of how devastating the card can be, we limited it to only 1 copy in the Action deck. We did talk at one point about increasing the number, but decided it moves into the "un-fun" category when it happens too many times in a game.

Another interesting bit of trivia about this card is that it is the only "attack a player" card that doesn't have a corresponding way to cancel or disrupt it. There is only one other Action card that also can't be cancelled or disrupted, and we'll reveal that next week.